A new report by The World Resources Institute (WRI) has found that unless world consumption of Beef, Lamb and dairy products is drastically curbed, the additional farmland needed to provide meat for 10 billion additional people will wipe out all forests and lead to catastrophic climate change by 2050.
As of right now meat and dairy production use 83% of farmland and produce 60% of agriculture’s emissions.
A 10 billion figure increase in beef consumption (which takes place mostly in richer countries) at it's current rate would require clearing the earth's remaining forest land for agricultural use to provide grazing ground for beef cattle, sheep and cows.
Tim Searchinger, of the WRI and Princeton University,: “If we tried to produce all the food needed in 2050 using today’s production systems, the world would have to convert most of its remaining forest, and agriculture alone would produce almost twice the emissions allowable from all human activities.”
The WRI concludes that the single biggest way to reduce an individual’s environmental impact on the planet, from slowing the annihilation of wildlife to healing dead zones in the oceans, is to stop consuming beef, lamb and dairy products- all of which produce the smallest yield of actual food per acre of farmland needed to maintain them.